Comic Con '07 round-up Part Two (Saturday)

[lazypadawan]

Because the Official SW Fan Club Breakfast was at 7 a.m., I had to get up at 5:30 a.m.. Ouch!

Check-in was smoother than last year. Well, at least until I got up to the desk. Last names A-M checked in with one person ("Ackbar through Mothma") and N-Z checked in with another person ("don't remember through Zuckuss"). Then they couldn't find my name because my picture i.d. had my full legal name instead of the name I normally go by. But they found it eventually. There was an older guy behind me wearing a Hawaiian shirt…I wondered why he was showing up at the SW breakfast without the usual t-shirt or costume, but I noticed he went to The Cool Kids Table reserved for folks like Steve Sansweet, Pablo Hidalgo, a guy from Hasbro, Albin Johnson and his daughter, etc.. I found a table nearby with some empty seats. The two guys already there had to be from some website because they kept taking pictures of The Cool Kids Table without anyone yelling at them. Eventually we were joined by two couples who sat on either side of me. At the table in front of each setting were a souvenir admission ticket (with Han on it), a copy of Adam Hughes's Comic Con artwork, and the coveted Comic Con exclusive McQuarrie-style figures of Obi-Wan and Yoda. Obi-Wan looks just like Ralph McQuarrie. Each table was decorated with SW balloons and centerpieces.

Breakfast this year consisted of some yummy pastries, scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, and some strawberries. We got to hear from the tireless Mary Franklin, who introduced each guest before he or she got up to the podium and drew numbers for prizes. Artist Adam Hughes was there and we all had our turns to have him sign the picture. Of course, I didn't win any of the drawings. It turns out the Hawaiian shirt guy was Randy Stradley from Dark Horse. Hasbro guy got up and talked for a few minutes. Steve Sansweet and Franklin took some questions toward the end. But I thought Albin Johnson's speech was really quite lovely. He talked about how fans have always been the best ambassadors of SW and that is certainly true (which is why I take so much issue with some fans sometimes).

Anyway, the goody bags. I got better stuff last year. If it was up to me, I would've poked around for a heavier bag, but the volunteers handed us the goody bags. What we got is what we got. There were things in there I got last year, like some stickers that I'll be giving away. There was SE-era folder that looked a little worn, some flyers, and a beat-up comic book. But there were some gems in there too: a keychain with a tag that indicates it was only sold in a Spanish-speaking country, some mini figs from Galoob, some old TESB-era black and white picture cards, and a CD single of Weird Al Yankovic's "The Saga Begins."

By 9 a.m., the breakfast was over. After getting some Diet Pepsi and chewing gum in the hotel gift shop, I walked to the Convention Center the next block over. There were already masses of people arriving. Many of them wanted in on the t.v. panels, most of which were on Saturday. My plan was to make a run for con exclusives. I'd already picked up a set of Supernatural exclusive cards the day before without any trouble. Unfortunately, it's not that way for Gentle Giant. Not only was it doling out a SW exclusive mini-bust (Commander Cody), it was also selling exclusive mini-busts of Luna Lovegood and some character from LOTR, and a maquette of Yoda and Artoo.

I stood by the doors closest to where Gentle Giant was located on the con floor. Miraculously, they let us in around 9:30 a.m. although nobody would start selling or giving away anything until 10. I went to the Gentle Giant area and found out their system consisted of a guy handing out 50 tickets at a time just so you could get in line and once 50 people leave, they'll hand out more. And they won't start selling anything until 11 a.m.. This meant it was darn near impossible to predict when you'll be able to get a ticket. Frustrated and annoyed, I spent more time at the SW Pavilion, watching the clips, getting more Hasbro coins, and buying more photos at Official Pix. I saw that they were giving out patches at the Lucasarts booth. When I picked up two of them, the guy at the counter goes, "Only one at a time!" So I went to the other side and picked up a second one. Heh heh. Then, I made my way across the exhibit hall to cover territory I didn't get to the day before.

The north end of the exhibit hall consists of dealers, with little enclaves of gothy stuff, Japanese stuff, action figures and collectibles, etc.. I got an anime shirt for the daughter of one of my mom's friends (hope it fits) and for myself, a poster and a new USPS pin featuring the Leia and Artoo stamp. I'd never seen it before; they also had Vader and Yoda pins. But I guess those are the only three available. At the poster place, I was looking at the postcards. You know you have way too much stuff and you're getting old when you're standing there looking at the cards and you can't remember if you have them already or not.

I was done with that end of the exhibit hall by 11 a.m.. I decided to see what was going on at the Gentle Giant booth. The guy who wants the Cody must've been praying really hard that he'll get one, because lo and behold, I spotted a GG employee with a handful of tickets. So I got in line for the tickets, then got into another line for the booth. As I waited, I talked with a young man who traveled all of the way from Florida and another dude who had his own war stories from the GG booth at Celebration IV. I also saw Lucasfilm's Bonnie Burton get in line. No special favors for licensors, I suppose. As we waited, the Luna Lovegoods sold out then there was a rumor that there were 40 Cody mini-busts left. I counted everyone in line ahead of me and figured if every one of them bought a bust, there should still be at least 20 or so left by the time I got up there. Sure enough, with about 10 people in front of me, they announced that the Codys were running low. Finally it was my turn and as luck would have it, I snagged a Cody. I was thrilled and it wasn't even for me. So did the guy from Florida and the Celebration IV vet.

After lunch back up on the second floor terrace overlooking the marina (still uncrowded), I made the insane decision to walk to Steve & Barry's to see if the fall stuff was out yet. For the second year in a row, I miscalculated how long it would take to walk to Horton's Plaza, on a hot day. But it was a nice break, even if I didn't buy anything. Someone even asked me what was going on at the convention center. On the way back, I saw scrawled on a chalkboard outside of a restaurant something along the lines of "the Emperor would've been a nicer bloke if he had lunch here!"

It was at this point, I had a hankering for a raspberry mocha frappucino. The Starbucks stand had a long line, but that was to be expected. Especially when it seems like no one knew what he or she wanted. When I got to the front of the line, a girl from the Hasbro booth came up and offered to buy for anyone who would let her order with them. She was on break and she needed to go back to work ASAP. So I volunteered. Anything for a person in need, right? It saved me $4.50. Woo hoo!

Back inside the exhibit hall, I visited with artist Matt Busch for a few minutes. He told me he did a new ROTS one sheet in the same style as the famous ANH "circus" poster by Drew Struzan. It should be available in October from ShopStarWars.com. When I mentioned the amount of Indiana Jones merchandise I've seen previewed, he said he heard that Lucasfilm made more merchandising/promotional deals for Indy IV than even for ROTS. Wow!

Then I got another Comic Con '07 t-shirt for the son of my mom's friend and a Vader/Anakin patch I'd not seen before. I tried to get one of those Kotobukiya Utapau trooper pieces for somebody interested in one, which was yet another convention exclusive. There were no lines, no gimmicks. Then when I tried to pay for it I discovered the inevitable catch: they took cash only and it was $100. They were very nice about it, but still, were they expecting us to wander in with sacks of gold coins?

Either my eye is getting used to seeing people in costume or there really are fewer people in costume this year. Not just SW, but overall. Not as many truly wacky costumes either. But there were still plenty of fans representing for SW. Honorable mention was this woman who had an amazingly good ROTS Anakin costume. I was doing a double-take when I saw her. Far and away the grand prize winner though was a Vader who walked around with his helmet off so you could see the yucky Mustafar-fried skin (awesome makeup job!) and had an exposed robo-claw. He was getting stopped every couple of feet for pictures.

There is something about Comic Con where after a day or two, you start to feel a little disoriented. There's so many people, there's so much noise, and you see so much weirdness, it starts to feel like Alice In Wonderland. What's with the teenage girls holding "Free Hugs" signs? Where did this sudden fascination with zombies come from? Beats me. It's less a convention than a surreal morass of popular culture, cultism, and celebrity.

Which gets to my point about Celebration IV. Celebration is a friendly midwestern town while Comic Con is midtown Manhattan. I think everybody is so dazed, so eager to get to the next panel or chase down somebody or get that coveted item, with few occasions it doesn't feel terribly hospitable at times. Like I said before, SW fans are just another brick in the wall. It was much more obvious this year that we behave differently with each other at Celebration than at Comic Con.

Near the end of the day, I decided to go outdoors on the mezzanine level and chill for a bit. It was quiet, with people sitting around and kids having lightsaber duels. I looked through my program to see if there was anything I missed and discovered another well-kept secret of the con. The Marriott had a hospitality suite with snacks and sodas. I knew I had to check it out. On my way to walk down to the marina, I strolled right past Peter Mayhew. He wasn't a guest or anything of the con; I guess he just wanted to come check it out.

Anyway, the con suite had cold sodas, pretzels, chips, dip, and candy, all for free. I thought I'd just walk and munch what I had since all of the tables were full, but the guy at the door told me I couldn't leave the room with anything. So I just quickly snarfed down what I had, then smuggled the soda out in a bag. Heh heh.

Thus ends the Comic Con experience for me...363 days now to recover!

Comments

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

The whole Comic Con experience sounded kind of gruelling, but I was interested in reading about it all the same. One thing I did notice when reading the first part was to wonder if you would get around to commenting on costumes; when I saw what you had to say in the second part, I started thinking of the certain number of comics weblogs that I read (which contained a certain amount of muttering about the mainstream press not really covering comics at the convention), specifically one post where I thought the author was saying he hadn't noticed many costumes either. Then, in looking back on it, I wondered if he was just saying he hadn't seen as many costumes that would embarrass the people wearing them...

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

It is grueling but still better than a good day at work ;).

No, there really weren't as many costumes this year. I think the crowds discourage a lot of people from dressing up. It's hard to move around in a complicated get-up in a convention center packed with 150,000, for hours on end on a hot day.

[anakinsluv.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the round-up! I'm living it vicariously through you...

Sounds like you had fun and snagged some goodies! I really need to get down to one of those sometime. That's cool that Peter was there too.